Musk Might Not Be Genuine. Democrats Should Still Take Him Back.

Will Democrats welcome Elon Musk back as an ally? They should.

After months of Musk acting as Donald Trump’s chainsaw-wielding right-hand man, Democrats are conflicted about Musk’s pivot Thursday to criticizing the House-passed megabill and its gutting of clean energy tax credits. But they’re slowly starting to realize that they should use him to their advantage.

“Musk and I have had deep disagreements on his approach at DOGE, but on this issue he is correct,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), one of Musk’s chief antagonists in the House, said in an email. “Democrats should be able to recognize that.”

Khanna’s plea appears to be driven by the reality that on climate issues, Democrats have almost nothing left to lose.

Democrats and green advocates have been spectacularly unsuccessful so far at retaining the Biden administration’s billions in incentives for solar, wind, batteries and electric vehicles, despite having spread them around as bipartisanly as possible (see the American Clean Power Association’s new quarterly report, which notes that “Eight of the top ten states for Q1 clean power additions voted Republican in the 2024 presidential election”).

So when Musk and Tesla Energy went after Trump’s House-passed “big, beautiful bill” for scrapping tax credits for solar and batteries, some realized it might help their case to have one of the world’s most famous billionaires with a direct line to the president on their side.

“Elon Musk and Tesla hit the nail on the head,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, the president and CEO of the solar industry’s main trade group, the Solar Energy Industries Association, in a statement. “Rolling back credits for residential solar, utility-scale solar, and manufacturing would put our grid’s reliability at risk and dismantle one of the greatest industrial revivals in American history. We hope the Senate is listening.”

Even if the Senate is listening, Musk will have to speak louder. He didn’t take the opportunity in Friday’s valedictory Oval Office appearance with Trump to air his disagreement over the megabill when asked to elaborate on what he’d like to change.

And other Democrats doubt Musk has enough clout left with lawmakers, after he spearheaded the controversial Department of Government Efficiency and dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into boosting Trump and Republicans.

“I don’t know that they’re actually all that helpful as the bill moves over to the Senate,” a senior House Democratic staffer granted anonymity to discuss ongoing legislative debates told me Friday, referring to Musk’s comments. “Musk himself is not very popular and [that] is one reason he’s leaving. Democrats have obviously spent lots of time beating him up because of his DOGE activities. ... Democrats love somebody who’s popular. It’s always great to throw a Ronald Reagan quote at them, but I just don’t see it as being very helpful to move the needle at this point.”

There’s also a very real question about how much Musk has hurt public opinion on clean energy beyond his own brand. He’s so toxic to Democrats that one pollster thinks he’s not only tainted Tesla, he’s damaged support for anything that will help Tesla, like California’s clean vehicle rules.

“Elon has negatively polarized a lot of Democrats against pro-EV policy, without having a real impact on positive polarization among Republicans,” Democratic consultant and pollster Evan Roth Smith told my colleague Alex Nieves this week. “What you wind up with is the worst of all worlds, where there isn’t enough support for any of this stuff.”

Of course, Musk wasn’t advocating for EVs at all — that was the whole problem. He steadily pushed for the repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act, including its rebates for electric vehicles, and never said anything against Congress’ overturning of California’s electric vehicle sales targets, as the Senate did last week.

But he could still be a powerful ally, if Democrats let him. He has Trump’s ear, plus his platform on X. And there’s a widespread acknowledgment of his clean energy bona fides. Musk’s roots with solar are nearly as deep as his electric vehicle allegiances: Along with his cousins, Lyndon and Peter Rive, Musk helped found SolarCity, the panel installer that Tesla bought outright in 2016 (and that received some $500 million in grants from the Obama administration’s American Reinvestment and Recovery Act).

“If Musk is coming back to a better place, they will welcome him with open arms,” predicted Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the Center for Biological Diversity. “He did more to change the auto industry with Tesla than all of my work and all of my colleagues’ work to try to change the auto industry from the outside.”

Both sides have their work cut out for them.

“Welcome back, but I think it’s just too little, too late,” said Margo Oge, the former director of EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality and chair emeritus of the International Council on Clean Transportation, an automotive think tank. “People really question his sincerity. Where has he been all these months?”